Pokemon Behaviors Class
by Kyron7
Summary: Welcome to Rustboro Technical Institute, home of the one-of-a-kind Pokemon Behaviors Class. What makes this class so unique? The fact that in order to participate, you must be turned into a Pokemon! Maybe increased to M due to planned violence
1. The day my life changes4ever

**Hi, it's me again. While I wanted to work on Child of the Dreams some more, I just haven't been able to get back into the groove, due to some other children born of my dreams that have been bouncing around in my head. For example, this one. I had a dream that I can't entirely remember, but it was somewhat like this. I started to type it down to remember it, and the next thing I know, it's over 5k words. Well, here is the story, hope you enjoy!**

**I own Circe, Sam Dayson, and all other original characters, as well as RTI**

**I do not own Pokémon unfortunately, so no money for me.**

My name is Sam Dayson. I used to be an average freshman at RTI (Rustboro Technical Institute in case you were wondering). My life had been going wonderful until that day, the day I tried to finish my father's dream. The day I turned myself into a Pokémon.

Hold on, let me rewind a bit.

At RTI, there is a special, quite popular class called Pokémon Behaviors. However, this isn't your average college lecture class, where you sit and get lectured, and occasionally get a pop quiz or test. No, it's special because it consists of a _three_ year long course that involves the students being _transformed_ into Pokémon! The idea behind this transformation is that by stepping into a Pokémon's "shoes" so to speak, one may get a better understanding of why they act in certain ways.

The technology behind the Transformation process had been discovered a few years back, by some inventor out by Cerulean City, a guy by the name of Bill. He had an accident involving a teleporter and some Clefairy hair, resulting in him turning into a Clefairy. Luckily, a trainer had come to see him for some reason, and was able to help him turn back into a human. Through the accident, this guy discovered the secret to transforming into a Pokémon.

After further experimentation and research, Bill discovered that by putting a DNA sample of the selected Pokémon into a teleportation pod, and then teleporting a human through the same teleportation matrix, the human would be turned into a similar copy of the Pokémon from which the DNA was taken.

He realized that this discovery would be invaluable to the field of Pokémon Research, so instead of selling his invention to a big company like Silph or Devon, he decided to donate the only working model of his teleporter to the school he graduated from, RTI. However, at the same time, he realized the evil that could be perpetrated with his machine, so he hid the blueprints, and designed his machine so that only he would be able to examine the insides, so as to prevent reverse-engineering by anyone who would try and steal his machine.

Years after the donation of the machine, and after several tests to see if there were any side effects, the machine was made available to Pokémon Researchers, to make their field studies easier. Recognizing that a unique teaching opportunity was available, RTI founded the Pokémon Behavior class, a class that was unlike any other.

This is where I come in.

"What do you mean, I'm not in the class?"

The professor sighed. It was always down to him to inform the rejects, and with the popularity of Pokémon Behaviors, there was always _so many_ rejects.

"Well, Mr…"

"Dayson."

"Thank you. Mr. Dayson, there are only so many seats in this class, and the seats are prioritized on prior academic performance and classes. Your performance, well… was less than adequate, and the classes you took just aren't the ones we look for in prospective students. You should try to get in next year" The blue-haired student wasn't mollified by this thin statement, and the professor sighed again. It looked like he was going to miss the beginning of his show once again.

"Come on, there has to be at least one seat left." I begged. I HAD to get into this class.

"I'm sorry Mr. Dayson, but there is absolutely no way that you are going to get in this class." With that, the professor got up, hearing the Teacher's Lounge and its television calling his name.

I remained in my seat, my mind's gears whirring, trying to figure a way I could get into the class, and more importantly, a way I could get into the transformer.

The only reason that I was so focused on getting into the transformer was to fulfill an old dream of my dad. You see, my father had been a field researcher for a Pokémon Lab in Johto. One day, while he was out recording the community behavior of a local den of Furret and Sentret, there was a blinding green flash. As soon as he recovered his eyesight, he ran over to where he believed the flash had originated. However, there was nothing there. Well, _almost _nothing there. Before he abandoned the area, he found three glowing green hairs, hairs that didn't match the coloration of anything he had seen before. He rushed back to the lab to try and scan the hair's DNA so he could find out what had caused the flash. Unfortunately, the machine was unable to figure out what Pokémon the hair had come from. My dad became obsessed with figuring out what could have caused the flash, and became totally absorbed with it, ignoring everything else. He was so focused on it, he ignored the blaring symptoms of hibernating Pokerus, and he soon fell ill, eventually succumbing to the disease.

I turned a small box over and over in my hands. In the box, were the three glowing green hairs that my father had discovered in the forest that day. As soon as I had heard there was a Pokémon to human transformer at RTI, I had decided I had to go. Not because I wanted to be transformed into a Pokémon, no. I wanted to go because I realized that if the machine was able to turn a person into a reasonable copy of a Pokémon using a small DNA sample, then it ought to have a powerful scanning device. I was sure that the machine would be able to tell what it was that had ruined my father's life.

I stood up, my mind set on what I had to do.

I had to break into the transformer room.

_That night_

Treyan Arch was bored out of his mind. Here he was, a graduate from the Saffron Law Enforcement Academy, and the best job he could find was a post at RTI guarding the Pokémon Behavior Wing. If he had been a little less Grumpig-headed, he would have realized that what he was doing was really important, as he was guarding a multi-million Poké, one of a kind machine, a machine that many would be dying to get their hands on. However, Trey believed that the more important a law enforcement officer's job was, the more action they got. With him moaning and groaning about how unfortunate he was, a small blur flashed past him, without him even noticing it.

His partner, Jack Vincent on the other hand did notice it.

"WHOA!" he roared, falling backwards out of his seat. The loud shout was enough to snap Trey out of his funk, and back into reality.

"Huh? What's the matter Jack?" He asked, wondering why someone would dare interrupt his (self) righteous complaints.

"I just saw someone run past. Come on, it's our job to check it out."

"Uhh, fineee, we'll go check out what was probably a Rattata or something," Trey complained. "Where are we off to first, o perceptive one?"

"You should know, Mr. Bigshot, the first place we check in case of a disturbance is always the transformer room."

"But that's all the way on the other side of the wing," Trey complained, before giving in and following his partner.

_In the Transformer Room_

"See, I told you there was nothing here."

"Shut up Trey, we've only searched one room.

The two guards continued bickering as they left the Transformer room after a surprisingly skilled search of every nook and cranny of the room. However, what they failed to do, however, was to make sure no one snuck in and hid one of those hidey-holes _after_ they had already searched it.

I emerged from behind a large cluster of wires to a dark and, more importantly, empty Transformer room. I smiled in relief. I thought those guards would have stayed here and bickered for the whole night. I turned my eyes to my true goal, the Transformer.

The transformer was an impressive piece of technology. There were several clusters of wires, like the ones I had hid behind, streaming all over the room. All of these wires connected to both of the tall, oval pods that made up the teleporter.

I walked over to the port on the teleporter where the DNA sample was supposed to be put in (I had watched the video of the transformation process many times, so I knew where said port was). I took the three hairs out of the box, and looked at them for a few minutes. These hairs were the only thing I had left from my dad. Once I had put them in the receptacle and started the scanning process, they would be dissolved, so the machine would be able to get a full scan.

I thought of one my father's favorite quotes, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." I steeled my determination. It was only three little hairs. What good would it do to hang on to them if I could never accomplish my father's dreams? I took a deep breath… and put the hairs in the scanner.

**SCANNING PROCESS STARTED, PLEASE WAIT.** The machine started whirring and I complied with it and waited patiently. I waited for 15 minutes when another message popped up.

**ERROR #115, INNER SCANNER IS OBSCURED BY SMALL BITS OF DETRITUS. PLEASE CLEAN THE BLACK BAND INSIDE TELEPORTATION POD A.**

I sighed. It seemed that there was some dust obscuring a critical component inside the pod. I went in and started to wipe it off… when suddenly the doors closed behind me!

**SCANNER CLEANED. DNA SAMPLE SCANS COMPLETE. TRANSFORMATION PROCESS STARTED.**

I started to freak out. While I had wanted to find out what Pokémon it was my father had seen that day, there was no way that I wanted to turn into it, whatever it was.

"Computer, halt program, stop, come on, let me out! I don't want to be a Pokémon!" I pleaded with the computer, trying to make it stop the program.

The computer ignored all of Sam Dayson's pleas because it had been programmed to not stop in the middle of a transformation. Teleportations halted mid-cycle could turn out rather nasty.

I gave up hope for trying to get out. I tried to think about my immediate future, but for some reason I was getting exhausted. It felt like my heart was beating ten times faster than normal. My brain gave up trying to process what was going on around it, and blissfully sent me into unconsciousness.

_The next day_

Professor Redwood strolled into the Transformer room, whistling a jaunty tune. The first day of the term was always his favorite day, and this term was a special one. He was up on the rotation to teach the Pokémon Behaviors class, which meant he could not only transform into a Pokémon again, but teach students while doing so. He rubbed at his arms absent-mindedly, imagining where his leaf-blades would be on his arm.

Redwood nodded at the two guards in front of the Transformer Room, and walked inside, ready to start cleaning up the room for the new class that would be coming in tomorrow. The teleporter was going to need to be dusted, the green fairy needed to be moved, the settings fine-tuned, the…

Professor Redwood paused and looked back at the B Pod. Curled up inside the pod was a small green Pokémon. The Pokémon had large eyes, a large raindrop shaped head, two blue-tipped antennae, and a dainty pair of clear wings. The professor blinked a few times and slapped his head.

"Not another trespasser! TREEEYYYYYYYYY! JACKKKKKK!"

_In the Dean's office_

Dean Vixi was the ruler of RTI. She tried… no, controlled the Institute with an iron fist. The institute was her domain, the place which she had raised up from almost nothing. When she had first come to the Institute, it had been a small, backwater college, a place people only came to in order to get their degrees so they could move onto bigger and better things. Now, it was a bustling hub of information, with a Pokémon Behaviors wing that no one could hope to match. All thanks to her. And now, someone had dared to go against that system.

The dean glared at the small, unconscious creature that had dared to defy her.

"You say you found it in the Transformer, Professor?"

The professor in question, one John Redwood and answered the Dean with a little fear in his voice. It was hard to not be afraid when confronted by Dean Vixi.

"Yes Ma'am. I found it there when I was setting up for the Pokémon Behaviors class that is tomorrow. I asked the guards if they had seen anyone in the Transformer room, but they said they hadn't.

Mrs. Vixi turned towards the large screen mounted in the wall of her office and said "Play tape."

A crystal clear image of the lab, as viewed from one of its many hidden security camera popped up. It showed the two guards, Trey and Jack, searching the room for any intruders. It also showed that they failed to make sure no one had followed them in as a young blue haired teen snuck in. The tape continued, showing the boy placing the green hairs in the scanner, and going in to the scanner to clean off some dust. However, he had forgotten to stop the process before cleaning off the dust, thus leading to his transformation.

"Ahhh, so the boy was merely trying to scan those hairs, not trying to change himself. He must not have realized that the machine is supposed to be turned off while any maintenance of any kind is done." The professor hypothesized.

This did nothing for the Dean. Whether or not the boy had been trying to change himself or just perform a scan was irrelevant. The security around the transformer room had still been breached, by a young man, who by his actions, while clever, was no professional. This made her Institute look bad, and if it got out, could ruin the reputation of the college, and possibly lead Bill to taking his machine back.

She rewound the tape, to an instant of where it showed the boy's face. "Do we know who he was?"

The professor peered at his face intently, trying to see if he could recognize him. A memory of blue hair came to him, and with that, a name.

"I think his name was… Dayson. Yes, Sam Dayson. He is a freshman I believe. I remember telling him that he had not made it into the Pokémon Behaviors class."

The dean pondered this information. A break in by an outside force was one thing to try and control, but an intrusion by a student; well… discipline was one of her favorite practices.

While the dean was thinking, Professor Redwood got up the courage to ask a question.

"What should we do with her, Ma'am?"

The dean was startled out of her meditation with this statement. "Her?"

"Yes," Redwood replied, "The DNA sample that Mr, err…. Mrs. Dayson placed in the machine must have been from a female, as during the time I took to try and figure out what Pokémon this is, I discovered that it is obviously a female specimen."

"Did you figure out what Pokémon it is Professor?" The dean asked, taking in this new information.

"I did indeed, but it took a lot of digging through some very old books. It is, most likely, the Pokémon known as Celebi, the rare Time-Travel Pokémon." The professor stated, feeling proud at being able to recite this information.

The dean raised an eyebrow. "Now how on earth would a young man obtain a DNA sample from a Pokémon that elusive?"

The professor looked at the Pokémon. "Why don't you ask her yourself, she's waking up."

With a small sigh and an involuntary flutter of her wings, the small green fairy sat up in the chair it had been placed on and opened its eyes.

"Where am I? What happened?" I looked around the room, trying to figure out where I was.

"Do you remember anything that happened last night Mrs. Dayson?"

I turned towards the voice and saw a giant looming over me.

"AHHHHH! DON'T EAT ME!" I yelled, instinctively curling up into a ball to try and hide from my attackers.

"Calm down, Mrs. Dayson, you're still disoriented from the size change." This time it was a new voice coming from my right.

Size change? What was this voice talking about? Then I looked down and saw, instead of my usual human body, a diminutive green form.

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

"MRS. DAYSON YOU WILL NOT USE SUCH LANGUANGE AROUND ME! AM I UNDERSTOOD!"

I meeped. "Yes Ma'am".

"Good. Now, before you make any other statements…" she started, glaring at me when I raised my hand. I slowly lowered it, noticing that my hands were now indistinguishable from my arms.

"… As a result of you BREAKING school rules, and operating the Transformer with neither permission nor supervision, an accident occurred, and you have changed into what you are now. Professor?"

The professor jumped, not expecting the sudden change of focus from the Celebi to him. "Ah, yes. Well, Mrs. Dayson, from what I have been able to gather, you have been turned into a healthy female Celebi, of indeterminate age due to the donor Pokémon's… unique status."

I started to process this information when one part jumped out at me. "Wait a minute, I'm a girl?"

I would have yelled again, but the first giant, who I now realized was Dean Vixi glared at me, and the obscenities died in my throat. I then asked the next important question on my mind.

"So when can I change back?"

"Unfortunately, as you were not registered to use the machine, we do not have a complete DNA sample of your original human form. Unless you just happen to have a fresh cup of your original human blood, we would be unable to change you back."

"But I used only three hairs of this… Celebi, and I got changed, so shouldn't the same work for changing back?"

The professor shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. The hairs you used were filled with an odd energy that prevents decay, so the DNA in them remained fresh. Regular human hairs don't have this energy so you're going to be stuck in that Celebi body unless we can find another solution."

Seeing the bummed out look on my face, the professor decided to try and cheer me up. "Well Mrs. Dayson, the good news is that you will be in my class after all."

I looked up at him. "Why is that? I broke the rules, got transformed into a girl Pokémon, and potentially ruined the schools reputation, seeing as how a teenager broke into the Transformer. Why should you kick someone else out so I can join?"

This time, Dean Vixi answered. "It is because Mrs. Dayson, due to the fact that we need to cover up what happened to you, and you need to be among other transformees, we are going to place you somewhere that would prevent any suspicion of why you are now a Pokémon. We'll just say you got permission from a teacher to go ahead and change, there was an accident, and this happened."

I decided to go ahead and ask the inevitable. "What about my punishment?"

The dean looked at me through her wire framed glasses for a moment and then replied. "Mrs. Dayson, while I do enjoy enforcing discipline, I believe that you have undergone enough to constitute your physical punishment, as I think you will be hesitant to go into the Transformer for the rest of your life."

I sighed in relief that there was not going to be any punishment.

The principal held up her hand. "I wasn't done Mrs. Dayson. Though there will be no physical punishment, there is one more matter to attend to. Due to the fact that you are no longer a male, residence in the Boy's dorm is no longer possible for you. When you move into the Pokémon Behaviors course, you are going to have to reside with the female population.

I couldn't help my outburst. "I'm going to have to live with the girls? Are you serious?"

"_Mrs._ Dayson, I am being perfectly serious here. Now, I want you to go get your things and go ahead and move them to the Girl's dorm in the Pokémon Behavior Wing. You will reside there for the night and attend the initiation ceremony tomorrow."

I looked at her and then looked at my tiny arms. Thankfully, Professor Redwood caught my glance.

"Do not worry Mrs. Dayson, I will personally assist you in moving your things over to the Girl's Dorm."

Thanking him, I jumped off the chair, and beckoned Professor Redwood to lead the way. As we left, I heard the Dean calling in the two security guards who apparently been waiting outside. I recognized them as the two guards from the night before, but before I could hear any conversation, Professor Redwood led me into an elevator which we took to get back over to the Boy's Dorm where my room used to be.

_Girl's Dorm, PB Wing_

After Professor Redwood finished helping me set my things up in my new room, he left, saying he needed to recalibrate the Transformer. I blushed and told him I was sorry, but he said to think nothing of it.

"After all," he told me, "because of your accident, I'm going to be able to study an actual Celebi, something not even I have seen before. This is going to be a learning experience for the both of us."

And with that, he left.

I turned around to look at my new room. It was rather nice, by both human and Pokémon standards. First of all, it had a forest theme, with _actual grass_ carpeting, and flowers and such growing up in certain places. The wallpaper was that of trees, and there was even a realistic forest canopy as a ceiling. However, the room wasn't completely au naturel. Rising up from the ground (on what was to be my half of the room) was a small desk, prefect for my height, with one of those squishy swivel chairs of the same proportions. Sitting on the desk was a small (Again, by human standards) laptop, complete with webcam and recorder. The laptop was currently in sleep mode, with a Porygon-2 bouncing around the screen. There was also a Grass-green couch, sitting in front of a plasma-screen TV, with a DVD player attached to it. I checked the library of movies and saw that it mainly consisted of documentaries about the behaviors of various jungle and forest dwelling Pokémon.

"Jeez, no wonder this class is so in demand, the rooms are just amazing!"

I decided to surf the Internet to try and find more information out about what was my new species. After getting to know my Porygon-2 anti-virus software a bit better (His name was Wadsworth), I got onto the Web, and started to surf. Hours later, I had not found out much more information about Celebi than I had started with. All I found out was that it is unknown if Celebi is a unique Pokémon or if there is more than one, due to its time-traveling ability. This ability of time-travel prevented much information from being obtained on Celebi in general.

I shut the computer down and looked around for my bed. It took me a while, but I finally found it. It was a hammock strung in between two branches up in the canopy. Without even thinking about it, I fluttered my wings and flew up into the hammock. Once I landed, I just sat in the hammock in shock wondering how in the world I had managed to fly without even knowing how. I gave it up as a question for another day and fell asleep in my new room

Seeing as how the initiation ceremony wouldn't start until Twelve Noon, I decided to wake up early so I could figure out how to fly voluntarily. I really didn't feel like walking all the way to the ceremony, so I felt that a couple of hours would be enough to get in touch with my flight muscles. I sat on the edge of my hammock, built up my courage and dove to the ground

_A couple of awkward and painful crashes later…_

It may have hurt, but I had finally figured out how to fly. It involved the use of new muscles in my back, something that took me a while to figure out. I looked at the clock and panicked.

_There was only five minutes left until the commencement ceremony!_

In a panic, I flew out the door and zoomed down the hall to the Transformer Room, hoping to make it to the ceremony before it ended.

"… Thus, it is with great honor, that I induct all of you into the Pokémon Behaviors Course!"

With a flourish, Professor Redwood ended his speech, amid a large amount of cheering. Though he tried to puff his ego with the thought that the cheering was for him, deep inside his heart, he realized that they were probably cheering for their upcoming transformation.

He looked over to the door and saw the top of a green head followed by a pair of large blue eyes peeking out at him. Realizing that Sam was looking at him, he motioned her into the room. Seeing her hover into the room, he was amazed at how she already figured out how to fly.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't realize that an assistant was nudging him until said assistant nudged so hard that he almost fell over.

Glaring at his assistant, he asked him what the problem was.

The assistant simply pointed at the crowd of students all glaring at _him_, and he blanched.

"Ohh, um, right, whose first?"

One girl pushed her way to the front and yelled out "Excuseeee me, but I believe that would be moi."

Redwood looked down at his electronic notepad which had the attendance list and opened the search feature (It was a REALLY long list). "And you are…?"

"Madeline Chase."

"Ahh, here you are Mrs. Chas-"

"YOU will refer to me as Madam Chase or Lady Chase. Anyways , lets get this over with, I have shopping to do for my new look. Make sure I'm not too fugly looking." All of this was said in one of those haughty "Better-than-thou" kind of voices.

Realizing that this was a daughter of a rather wealthy tycoon, and not wanting to possibly lose his job, Redwood acceded to her requests. "Well… Lady Chase, if you would just step into the machine, we'll see what the randomizer gives you.

I sat in the rafters, personally hoping that the bitch got something like a Grimer or a Zubat. It'd fit her personality to a T.

The teleporter doors closed on Madeline and whirred for a bit. After a short time, the Pod B doors opened and out came… a Snubull.

"Humph. I guess this is all right. At least I'm cute." With that Madeline moved away, going into the crowd, probably to find her flunkies.

Now that one person had been transformed, everyone else wanted to be transformed. It was all Professor Redwood could do to avoid being swamped by the people wanting to be changed into Pokémon. As I sat up high where no one could see me I saw a large stream of people going into the teleporter and Pokémon coming out. There was an incredible variety of the Pocket Monsters. I saw Shuppet, Kecleon, Treecko, Caterpie, Ratatta, Gligar, Pikachu, Oddish, Porygon, Bulbasaur and many others. After the last Pokémon had scurried out, a Ralts, Professor Redwood turned off the randomizer and programmed in his Pokémon, a Grovyle. After he stepped out, he started to read out the rules.

"Alright, Rule number 1, you will do no unsupervised fighting. While we do realize that fighting is in a Pokémon's nature, we ask that none of you do it until you have been properly trained in your particular fighting styles. Rule 2, every weekday, you will get up and come to your assigned class at 10 o' clock sharp. Rule 3…."

Professor Redwood continued to drone on and on until he finally finished reciting the rules. Next up was dorm assignments. I just couldn't wait to find out who my dorm mate was going to be.

"As each of you walked out of the teleporter, you were handed a card. On said card is you room number. We are now going to take the rest of the day off so that you can find your rooms and get to know your room mates. That will be all."

After that, it was a mad rush to get out and find their roommates. I waited until the room was clear and then flew down to where Professor Redwood was.

"Mrs. Dayson, I am shocked at how quickly you were able to pick up on flying. I had honestly expected you to take a few more days to figure it out. Were you able to discover any other techniques of yours?"

"No sir, not yet. I was looking up information about Celebis and-"

"Mrs. Dayson, what time is it?"

"It's 1:18:34 sir, why?"

Professor Redwood just sat there smiling there for a moment, and then I realized what I had said."

"Wait, how did I know that?"

Professor Rowan stretched out his arms (It had been a while since he had been a Grovyle) and replied "It has been asked how a Celebi would not be disoriented upon time-travelling, and you just confirmed my hypothesis. Apparently, you have a perfect grasp of exactly what time it is, which I believe you have so as to prevent Time Disorientation."

We sat there and talked for a while before I looked up at the clock and realized that two hours had passed.

"Professor, I need to go meet my new roommate, she's probably waiting for me."

"Go on right ahead Mrs. Dayson, I'll talk to you later." With that, I flew off to my room, curious about who and what my roommate would be."

_Back at Sam's room_

A Ralts was sitting against the door of her new room. Even though she had been given a key to the room, she was too nervous to go inside without her roommate being there. After all, who knows what side of the room she would want, what the restrictions on friends would be, what…

The nervous Ralts was shocked out of her "What-if" mode by the sudden appearance of a green fairy dropping down in front of her and yelling "Hi!"

"EEEEEEEEKKKKK!"

The loud Screech travelled down the hallway, shattering any and all glass that it passed.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you." I said to the nervous wreck of a Pokémon.

After she had calmed down enough I held out my hand for her to shake. "My name is Sam, what's yours?"

Taking a couple of deep breaths, the Ralts replied, "My name is Circe. Am I to guess that you are my roommate?"

I smiled and nodded my head.

"Whew. I was worried that I might get stuck with Madeline again."

This time I gasped. "You were stuck with that bitch as a roommate? I am sooo sorry for you."

The mere mention of her previous roommate seemed to send her into a small depression. I patted her back and told her that she didn't have to worry, I would do anything like that.

As we walked into my…OUR room, I thought that maybe, this accident wouldn't turn out so bad.

Now if I could figure out why I had a craving to talk to other girls for hours.

**Well, that wraps up Chapter One. Again, as with Child of the Dreams, I may update regularly or sporadically, I don't know. I would tell you all a time by which I would get the next chapter out, but more likely than not it would be months off. So there. Oh, and REVIEW as it makes me smile with joy knowing what people think about my story. TTFN!**

**PS I have hidden an Easter egg (a reference to a piece of popular culture) in the story, in the form of a name. **


	2. Day 1: Learnin' to fight

**Hello again, it's Kyron7 with the second chapter of Pokémon Behaviors Class. Looking back at this chapter, I feel like I have outdone myself and created a really good chapter. Then again, I am an arrogant smart-ass so who cares about my opinion. I would like to hear from you guys on what you liked or disliked, and what I can do to improve the story such as characters, techniques, etc. That is, except for my technique of switching between 1st and 3rd person a lot, because I like to use that, so it stays. Anyways, here is the next chapter of PBC.**

**I still do not own Pokémon despite bribes, threats, and sabotage towards Nintendo and Gamefreak. **

**Curses.**

Normal Speech- "speech"

Thoughts or transmitted conversation- "_speech_"

Computer speech- "**SPEECH**"

Author Note or pleas to review- **(Begs)**

* * *

I woke up with a small yawn. I swung a little bit in my hammock, trying to decide if I wanted to get up yet. Yet another effect I had discovered from being changed into a Celebi was a Minimized need for sleep. Now, I only slept if I wanted to, not because I had to.

My thoughts on the subject were interrupted when a surprisingly loud snore reverberated through the room, reminding me that I had a roommate.

Unlike my hammock in the "canopy" of the room, Circe's bed was more down to earth. It was shaped like a bowl or, I guess, like a nest, which was probably done in order to soothe the instincts that came with being transformed into a Pokémon. However, unlike a nest of grass or twigs, which would be what a normal Pokémon nest would consist of, this bed was made of strong cedar loops, and had soft silk pillows for bedding. All in all, it was a really nice bed.

Still, that snoring was getting annoying.

Having had enough of the inescapable noise, I decided that it was time for the Ralts to wake up. However, I wouldn't be waking her up with a simple bit of shoving. I felt like getting a little revenge for having to listen to that snoring for hours.

* * *

Circe Talim was having a good dream. She was dreaming that she was back at home, reading books in her library. She was about to turn the next page when…

"Goooood Morrrning!"

Suddenly, the image of her library was flooded with water, breaking her out of her dream world and back into reality.

The Ralts opened her eyes, spluttering as she did so, to find out where the water attack was coming from. The only thing she could see when she did so, was a pair of large, black-framed blue eyes staring at her.

"Morning, sleepy-head!" Circe just blinked a few times then took a deep breath…

"WHAT"S THE BIG IDEA, WAKING ME UP LIKE THAT!"

I winced, Circe's Screech echoing as much as her snoring did.

"Well, you wouldn't stop snoring so I had to figure some way to wake you up."

She blushed. "I was…. snoring? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to ruin your sleep!" At this, she started to cry.

Of course, seeing the poor little Ralts cry made me feel bad. "No, no, it's alright Circe! I don't need much sleep anyway so it wasn't a problem!"

Circe sniffled. "You're not mad at me?"

I was confused by this remark. "Why would I be mad at you, Circe? The snoring was only a little irritating; it was no reason to be mad at you!"

Circe finally managed to calm back down and started to explain why she had responded the way she had.

"My parents were always telling me that snoring was unladylike and that they would not stand my snoring in their house. Every time that I snored, I would have to go without dinner the next day. Eventually, I just stopped snoring. I have no idea why it is starting up again?"

To say I was shocked at how Circe's parents had treated her would have been an understatement. "Why would your parents do such a horrible thing?"

Instead of answering, Circe just looked away. I could tell that she was _very_ uncomfortable with the subject, and decided to switch to a different topic.

"So," I started, trying to defuse the situation, "How do we find out what classes we are taking?"

The look on Circe's face was one of relief as she started to explain the process.

I held up my hand quickly, as something popped up in my mind.

"Hold that thought Circe, we have to get going. It's almost orientation time."

* * *

As we entered the Transformer room again, I saw Professor Redwood, in all of his Grovyle glory, standing up at a podium that had been placed in front of a large fluffy carpet. He noticed me and nodded, ticking off (I guess) Circe and Sam off on his attendance list. After a few more stragglers had made their way in, he nodded to two still human aides by the doors, who immediately began to close the tremendous affairs of steel and titanium.

"I see that all of you have settled in to your new rooms and met your roommates." the professor started. "Now that you are more familiar with your forms, it is time to assign you your classes. Of course, there will be some general education classes, which everyone will participate in, but there will also be some… special classes as well."

A hand… err… paw shot up from the back.

"Yes Mr…", Redwood checked his digital organizer, "Austin, what is your question?"

The Riolu whose paw had shot up asked what the Professor had meant by special classes.

"If you would just indulge in a bit of patience Mr. Austin, I was getting to that. There will be a variety of different classes for you first years, including but not limited to: cross-type training, training with those of your types, Instinct Examination and Comparison, etc. For your first class, everyone will be taking Fighting 101, so as to get the inevitable over with. Depending on how you fare in this class will determine what classes you will take next week, as well as what environments you will be sent to during your studies, and later on, during exams." He looked at his watch (which, as I had noticed yesterday, had a Treecko design). "Well, I believe class will be starting now. As you leave, you will be handed a paper showing you all of your classes for the first week. Be sure to keep track of it, as another will NOT be given. Okay then, off with the lot of you." He turned around and started to pick up papers, and all of the students started to leave, a buzz of excitement filling the air.

Circe and I both grabbed our schedules and walked outside, focusing on what our classes would be. Here's what mine said:

**A Block- Fighting 101**

**B Block- Grass Studies**

**C Block- Grass Moves Discussion**

**D Block- Psychic Behaviors Studies**

**E Block-**** Psychokinetic Practice**

**Lunch**

**F Block- Directed Individual Studies**

**G Block- Study Hall**

"Hey Circe, what do you have?"

She took her eyes off of her schedule and moved them to mine. "Here let me see your schedule so I can compare classes."

I complied and handed her my schedule.

Circe blinked a little in surprise. "We have four classes together. You're a Psychic-Grass Type? I've never heard of that combination before."

I was saved from having to explain (Or hide) my species by our arrival at our destination: Fighting 101.

* * *

Naomi Rios smiled as she watched the new students crowd into her classroom. She glanced down at the specially designed watch that adorned her small pink arm, and smiled, realizing that it was time for class to begin.

"Alright class, settle down." While some of the students heeded her request, there were pockets of students that continued talking. Naomi took notice of the groups that continued to talk, paying special attention to one of the groups, which was centered around a Snubull.

After taking note of which students had paid attention and which ones had not, Professor Rios took a deep breath and let out a Screech.

Immediately, all attention was switched to the Wigglytuff standing at the front of the class.

"Good. Now that I have your attention, we can start class. My name is Professor Naomi Rios, and I will be teaching you the basics of Pokémon fighting.

The muttering that went around the classroom was worded differently by each who repeated it, but they all had the same general gist.

_Why are we being taught by a pink puffball on how to fight?_

Professor Rios ignored most of the mutterings and continued her speech.

"Of course, as those of you who have looked at your schedules have no doubt figured out by now, I will not be teaching you moves used by your type, or types. I will simply be teaching you _how_ to fight. There will be times, when you are out researching, that you will be attacked by a feral Pokémon, that you will be taken by surprise, and unable to respond with a special attack. I will be teaching all of you, especially those whose species are more about disciplining the body on how to fight physically. For those of you whose species is more geared towards special attacks, I will only be teaching you how to get in harmony with your fighting instincts, and how to use those moves that your species instinctively know."

Noticing that many of her new students, especially those who were Fighting types, were getting a bit antsy, she decided to cut things short and skip ahead to the practical portion.

"I am now going to split you all into groups of four, which will then be further split into two more groups. Your goal will be to knock out the opposing sub-group."

A gasp went up from some of the students, many of whom were apparently not ready for such a physical confrontation.

Hearing the murmur of anxiety, Professor Rios decided to try and bring ease to her students.

"I will be watching these battles to be sure that they don't go out of hand. If I see that any of you are getting too rough, I will immediately call an end to the battle and require you to return to the classroom."

"As I call out your names, you will step on one of the numbered teleportation panels behind me, and take your place on the field." As she said this, twelve panels on the wall behind her lit up, each with a number on them.

As Professor Rios started calling out names, Circe looked over at me worriedly.

"Sam, I don't think I'm ready to battle. I don't wanna get hurt!"

I calmed her down gently. "Circe, this is only a practice battle. Everything will be fine."

Despite this calm demeanor I was exhibiting on the outside, on the inside, I was really nervous. After all the only fighting experience that I had had was a few brawls all the back in middle school.

"Miss Dayson and Miss Talim, step on panel 7. Your partners will be Austin Virience and Lawrence Cabel."

As Circe and I got up to go into the arena, we saw the Riolu from before get up, as well as a Machop who had been flirting with Madeline the Bitch.

The four of stepped on the designated panel. There was a blinding light and a light tug upwards and we were off.

Due to a… lack of space on campus and the ever-growing demand for the Pokémon Behaviors Class, not even four years after the class started being offered, RTI was forced to start using off-campus facilities for various sections of the class. One of the more expensive class sections was the Battle Training class and all of its various segments. While paying for an arena was not out of reach monetarily, as the institute had money to spare, the problem was finding a stadium that would be able to field several battles at a time AND be far enough out of the way that no major tournaments would interfere with the class schedule. Obviously this was a hard problem to solve as many of the arenas that had a large enough capacity were located in large cities, and were specifically built for the tournaments that brought a lot of tourist revenue to the cities.

The search got so desperate that RTI started to seriously consider building their own arena, despite the fact that such a project would be a large drain on their resources. Luckily, just as the college's board was drawing up plans and a budget for the arena, an available location was found.

One day, while one of the board members was at lunch with a friend, an Overseas Manager of an up and coming corporation, the arena problem came up in conversation.

As the board member continued on and on with his tirade, the manager listened to him patiently.

Once the board member paused to take a breath, the manager interrupted. "Did you ever consider out of country? Maybe in Orre? I hear that they have a ton of Coliseums there and with the lack of tourism, at least one of them should be available.

Thus the problem was solved. RTI sent a representative out to Orre to try and find an available arena.

A few weeks after the representative had gotten there though, he sent a message back to Hoenn saying that it seemed that there would be no luck finding an available arena in Orre either. He said that he was going to spend a little more time there trying to find an arena he heard about called "The Deep". Four days after that, he sent word that he had found them an arena.

The Deep Coliseum was in bad shape. In its heyday, it had been one of the top spots in Orre for tournaments that sometimes were of questionable legality. Due to its popularity at the time, it had expanded into a large mass of chambers, with the ability to field up to fifty battles at one time. Of course, ever since the defeat of Teams Snagem and Cipher, the advent of several new Coliseums around Orre, and the increasing instability of the environment around the Deep, it had fallen into disrepair as no one came to it anymore. Why travel down to a dangerous coliseum on the verge of collapse when there was a more advanced and much more stable one in the city right above?

Once the board got word that the Deeps would make a suitable battle arena for classes, they immediately approved the start of repair procedures.

First, the arenas had to be stabilized. One good tremor from the not-so-far off Mt. Battle, and the whole place could collapse in on itself.

With the use of metal that was smelted from shed Steelix boulders, the entire complex was encased in a metal shell that could withstand pressures greater than those found at the bottom of the ocean. With the Spinarak-web of chambers stabilized, the facility could be brought up to date. The primary piece of tech that had to be installed was the teleportation matrix. The matrix consisted of two hub teleporters, each of which was connected to several branch warp panels. The way the matrix worked was that the moment someone stepped onto one of the active branch warp panels at RTI, they would be teleported inside of the more powerful hub teleport, which had a much larger teleport range than the smaller warp panels. The hub teleporter would then send the person (or Pokémon) to the other hub teleporter, which was located in a secure room in the Deeps. Upon reaching this teleporter, the being would be shuttled to an arena matching the number on the original warp pad.

Of course, the entire process seemed to happen instantaneously, so those who went through the teleporter had no idea that they weren't going to an arena on the school grounds, but actually to an entirely different country.

To further hide the identity of the location of the training grounds, all of the arenas were designed to depict a variety of enviroments. In some, through the use of self-sustaining Sunny Days and genetically designed fast growing flora, forests and meadows were made that made the arena seem to be in Viridian Forest rather than in a cave. In some other arenas, special crystals (imported all the way from Chargestone Cave in Unova) as well as metal laced stone created an environment well-suited to Pokémon of the Electric persuasion. For some of the more dangerous enviroments, such as a semi-active volcanoes, holographic projectors were installed, giving the RTI administrators the ability to make the battlefield look like the environment with complete accuracy. The only way to realize that the environment was a hologram and not the real deal was to walk through the edge of the hologram. With shifting chambers and some advanced environmental effects added in, the illusion was complete.

* * *

_At Arena #4_

The feeling of teleporting was a new feeling to me. I had never stepped on a warp panel before, the fear that the machine would mess up and send me off to god knows where preventing me from daring to step onto one of those panels. This time though, even though it was my first time in a teleporter, I was unafraid. I felt as calm as if I had been teleporting my entire life. The actual feeling of being teleported as well seemed almost… familiar and so right.

A split-second after we stepped onto the warp panel, we were in a different place.

Once we saw what the arena looked like, Circe and I (and maybe the Riolu, I wasn't sure) all gasped.

It was _beautiful_.

Instead of a dreary concrete room like we had been expecting, we found ourselves in a sunlit meadow. Nearby we could see a sparkling stream meandering its way slowly through the scene, its sparkling path twisting and turning like an Ekans through the grass.

In the middle of this pristine meadow, there was a large knoll. The top of the boulder was cut off, if as by a knife. On top of the flat rock, we could see that the lines of an arena had been drawn out. The arena was not drawn out in lines of chalk though, but rather done in lines of a bright green grass. Also on top of the knoll were a few bushes and small trees, not enough to prevent movement, but enough to provide a sort of natural screen between the two halves of the arena. Apparently, this battle was not meant to be a teamwork exercise.

A loud crackling voice boomed out across the arena, startling us out of our stupor.

"_This is Professor Rios. Momentarily, you will hear a strident buzzing. At that time, you and your partner will step onto your side of the arena. You will then wait for a second buzzing, and you will commence battling. The rules of this practice battle are simple. The first team to either knock out the opposing team, or make them leave the boundaries, wins."_

Seconds after the voice went silent, the aforementioned buzzing noise rang across the clearing. Wincing at the sudden noise, all four of us stepped onto the platform and waited for the signal to start.

* * *

Nestled into the center of the facility was a large orb-like room officially known as "The Deeps Command Center". Unofficially, it was called "The Heart", because without it, the rest of the facility would stop working. From maintaining oxygen levels to monitoring the arenas, from keeping the facility secret to even measuring the amount of water used in the bathrooms, everything was controlled through the systems of the command center. The only way to access the room was through the use of a "code" of encrypted warp panels, the order in which they had to be used varying every day. The chamber itself was completely isolated from any passageways, being constructed in a way that the nearest passage was at least fifty meters away.

Inside of the Heart itself, there was a technophile's paradise. Bank, upon bank of the most advanced computers lined the walls of the chamber, with battalions of people and Pokémon operating the machines 24/7. Dominating the center of the room was a large blue ring surrounding a matte-black circle of floor. In the middle of the floor was a slender silver column, on top of which was a red dome, which had a purpose that only the administrators of the Deeps knew.

Despite the amazing amount of technology in the room, the most impressive thing in the Heart was not artificial, but organic.

Hanging from the ceiling, sealed within a large, circuit embedded glass sphere was an angrily buzzing blue and green mass of electricity. Every now and then, if one were to look closely enough, a pair of eyes and sometimes a mouth would press up against the glass, making faces at the ones working below. As it buzzed around its prison, several specially-designed collector dishes on the capsule absorbed the excess electricity it generated and sent the power to the facility's power generators. Through the power generated by the poltergeist, enough power was generated in a day that could power an entire city for a month. Of course, some would consider this way of generating power to be unethical and cruel, but due to the case of C.A.C.T.U.S (Citizens Against Cruel Treatment Unto Sentients) VS. Hoenn Supreme Court it had been deemed legal to use a Pokémon for the good of humankind, so long as the Pokémon in question had been determined dangerous to both human and Pokémon-kind alike. As this Rotom had been terrorizing the residents of Fuschia City and the Pokémon living in the Safari Zone with massive Shockwaves, it was perfectly legal to use the Rotom as a power source.

The warp pad at the back of the room flashed, and deposited Mrs. Rios into the Heart. The moment she entered the room, an almost imperceptible shiver went through all of those in the room, even the Rotom (Of course it may just have been a surge of electricity). Of all of the administrators of the Deeps, none were more feared than Professor Rios. Everyone remembered what had happened to the last person that had angered her (He had been hospitalized due to "Falling down the stairs" even though there were no stairs in the Deeps), so everyone knew that they had to be _extra_-careful around her.

"Are we ready to initiate testing?" she asked, putting on a headset specially designed for her… rounded form.

The senior aide, one of the few humans in the room, stepped up to her and saluted. "All systems are green, Ma'am. We await your signal.

The Wigglytuff nodded (Somehow, even though Wigglytuffs don't have necks. Don't question it.) and sat down in the command chair. The chair sat within perfect viewing range of the monitors that overlooked the training arenas. Professor Rios knew that the first battles of the PBC freshmen could be the most dangerous, as they didn't understand their own abilities. Even though they had no idea on how to harness the natural power that their new forms gave them, they also didn't understand their physical powers, or how to control the battle instinct that all Pokémon were born with. Several times before, the professor had seen first time battlers end up breaking each others bones before they were pulled apart. To make things worse for Naomi this year, the random generation of the forms of the new students had resulted in a large amount of Fighting type Pokémon in ratio to other types. The problem with this was that Fighting –types, even those who had never been in a fight before, had a more dangerous battling instinct than other types, as the Fighting-type Pokémon's life _revolved_ around fighting. Thus, more often than not, the Fighting-type Freshmans usually ended up sending their opponents to the Emergency Room.

Naomi sighed. It was time.

"Let the battles begin."

A second buzzing noise echoed across the clearing, interrupting the peace that had settled over the meadow. The battle had begun.

* * *

Lawrence and Austin started things off by charging at Circe and me, closing to hand-to-hand range quickly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Circe run away screaming at the top of her lungs as Lawrence charged at her, a vicious gleam in his eyes.

My focus on Circe's plight almost led to my very downfall. By focusing on her, I had completely forgotten about my own opponent. Because of this, I took quite a hit to my gut. This punch was followed by a flurry of kicks and more punches, each one pushing me back towards the edge of the arena. With the speed of the attacks, it was impossible for me to counterattack. As the boundaries came closer, I closed my eyes, resigning myself to defeat.

Suddenly, the assault stopped. I opened my eyes, expecting to find myself past the boundary lines, and thus defeated. To my surprise, however, I had been pushed right to the lines, but not over them.

I looked towards the Riolu, a questioning look on my face. I started to ask "Why di-"

"Why did I not push you over the boundary line? I didn't push you over because that would be a shameful thing for me to do. You were not paying attention, and I caught you off guard. If I had disqualified you at the get-go, I would be unable to test my abilities. I intend to discover the extent of this body's skills."

At these words, my respect for the Riolu rose a couple of notches. He was a fighting type, a Pokémon group known for their eagerness to battle, yet he was holding back, wanting to have a fair fight.

I got back up, ready to continue fighting, resolved to win. Even though I still wasn't quite sure of what effect winning or losing this training battle would have on my classes, I was determined to do my hardest.

Still, the odds were against me. Riolu was a fighting type, and as such, was a much more instinctive fighter. Though I had a Psychic-type advantage over him, it was worthless if I couldn't use any of my Psychic attacks against him. All I was able to do at the moment was use my bare hands, my senses, my wings-

"_That's it! My wings!"_

I focused on my opponent, waiting for him to make the first… well, I guess _second_ move.

We stood there for several minutes, standing as still as statues, each of us ready to react the moment the other moved.

Austin moved first, coming at me with a fist cocked back. I waited until about five seconds before impact, and then reacted, flying up about three feet.

Austin had obviously not expected this, and was unable to immediately stop his forward momentum. It took him a moment to actually realize that he hadn't hit me, and after that it took him another few moments to actually slow down.

By the time he did manage to slow down, he was at the edge of the arena. Now, it was his turn to be afraid. Unlike him, however, I didn't have the luxury of letting him continue battling. If I did, I would be at his mercy, as he would be unlikely to fall for the same trick twice. Without any of my special abilities, his natural fighting skills would tear me apart.

I flew over to Austin, who was pinwheeling his arms, trying to maintain his balance on the edge of the arena.

"Sorry, but you lose this one, Austin. Maybe next time."

With that, I lightly poked him on the back, and he fell forwards, past the arena boundary. A droning computerized voice sounded out across the arena

"**AUSTIN** **VIRIENCE HAS LEFT THE BOUNDARY. SAM DAYSON IS THE WINNER."**

I flew a little loop-the-loop in the air in excitement. My first battle as a Pokémon and I had won!

I flew over to the column of plants bisecting the arena and peeked through, checking to see how Circe was doing…

_Earlier, on the other side of the arena (Circe's POV)_

To say that I was nervous, would be like saying that Magikarp were only slightly weak. In other words, it was a huge understatement.

As I stood trembling on my side of the arena, I started going over everything remotely bad I had done recently, trying to figure out what it was that I had done that made me deserve this.

I had always been somewhat of a shy bookworm, almost never going outside of my library, except for school of course. My social experiences were limited to a few awkward "hellos" and maybe a handful of situations where I had to explain something to someone. Because I kept to myself so much, I was pretty much invisible in the eyes of my classmates. Thus, I had never gotten invited for social outings, had never gossiped, and, more importantly, had never even been in a fight! Also, because of my parents' strict rules, I had never been in a Pokémon battle, had never seen one, heck, had never even touched a Pokémon! They thought that Pokémon training, battling, and anything having to do with Pokémon was something left to the plebeians, and that the upper class should have absolutely nothing to do with, and I quote, "Those foul, ugly, graceless beasts". They had even taken steps to ensure that no information material of any kind had made its way into our library, so the only way I was able to get any information on Pokémon was through bits and pieces of conversation I overheard at school.

Getting in the Pokémon Behaviors Class was something I had not told them about until the deadline for changing classes was past. They had raised an enormous fuss over it and had even called RTI demanding that they take me out of the class. Fortunately, due to rules and regulations that the college as well as the Hoenn government had set up, once a student had applied for the class, they MUST take it, else a VERY hefty fine would be charged, as well as certain misdemeanor charges. This was because the class, and thus the college, brought in so much money due to tourism, that the entire city of Rustboro pretty much depended on the college to sustain itself (Devon Corporation had fallen on hard times, and had been forced to move operations to the more populated Lilycove City in order to cut costs on shipping distance). If there was one thing that my parents hated worse than Pokémon, it was losing money, and losing face. Reluctantly, they had allowed me to take the class, with the harsh warning that if I was turned into anything but one of the "barely acceptable" Pokémon, they would disown me.

I was so deep in my thoughts, I almost didn't detect the buzzing noise that signaled the start of the battle. However, at the sight of Lawrence the Machop charging at me with a homicidal **(AN: Would that be Pokecidal? Or just homicidal? Screw it, on with the story)** look in his eyes awoke my fight or flight instincts.

Of course, I just went with flight. Well, flight and screaming actually.

"!"

Looking back on that first battle, I only remember bits and pieces. I remember futilely trying to run over the boundary lines, but I was thrown back into the middle of the arena before I crossed the lines. Then I remember trying to crawl away, but getting picked up and thrown into one of the trees that dotted the arena. After that, I remembered only pain followed by being wrapped in what felt like a blanket of leaves…

* * *

_Once again, earlier at the start of the match_

Lawrence the Machop leered at the Ralts. It looked like he was going to get an easy and satisfying battle. As he had learned from watching his dad, the only way to teach girls their place was to beat it into them.

Hard.

As soon as the buzzer sounded, Lawrence was bounding across the smooth surface of the knoll, an eager look in his eyes. The Ralts opposite saw the look, and started running towards the edge of the arena, trying to disqualify herself.

Lawrence was not going to have any of that nonsense happening.

He ran as hard as he could, whipping past trees and bushes, sprinting to reach the Emotion Pokémon before she could steal his victory away.

Right before she was able to cross the boundary lines, he grabbed her shoulder and threw her backwards lightly.

Well, lightly by his standards anyways.

The little Pokémon slammed into the middle of the arena and laid there for a moment, the breath apparently knocked out of her. The Machop strode up to her and kicked her in the chest, which threw her into one of the trees dotting the arena. Satisfied that his opponent would be unable to go anywhere, Lawrence set into his opponent with a barrage of punches, determined to teach his opponent her place, beneath a man's foot.

The opponent in question let out an earsplitting shriek and fell silent, not even flinching against his punches anymore.

Lawrence frowned. What was the point of beating a female if she was not conscious to learn the lesson? He started giving her a barrage of Wake-Up Slaps, trying to get her conscious so he could beat the lesson into her more. The Ralts's skin went from pure white to angry purple, but the Machop didn't care. If anything, the bruises made him more eager, because the sight of bruised skin reminded him of how his mother looked whenever his father was done with her.

* * *

_In the Heart_

Naomi Rios wiped some sweat from her face with a stubby arm.

So far, she had had to terminate three of six battles early due to overly eager students getting too rough with their opponents. Still, three out of six wasn't that bad of early terminations as far as some of the earlier years had been, and no one had received major traumatic damage yet, so things could be worse.

Professor Rios was startled from her reverie when an assistant, a Porygon bumped her with its beak.

"Professor!"

"Yes, what is it technician?" A icy undertone laced her tones, promising swift reprisal if this Porygon was asking her something irrelevant.

"We have a problem in Arena #7!"

Sensing the urgency in the program's tone, the pink professor swiveled in her chair and accessed the camera system for said arena.

At first, when she looked at the recording for the first side of the arena, she saw a fair and surprisingly honorable fight for a fighting type. As soon as the Riolu went out of boundary, the camera continued recording for a few moments to make sure neither commited any unsportsman-like conduct, and stopped recording.

When she looked at the still going feed for the left side of the arena she gasped. In it, she saw Lawrence the Machop slapping Circe so hard, he was liable to break her face if he continued. There was a point to which fighting could be considered that of over-eager Pokémon. There was even an extended point which could be considered actions of self-preservation. But what was being done in that arena was beyond any of that. It was plain psychotic!

Professor Rios reached for the button that would activate the Stun Spore sprayers when something grew across the screen of her camera. She rapidly switched the view to another camera when suddenly something grew across that screen as well. She swiftly keyed to the camera status screen, and frowned when security cameras all over that arena started to go dark.

"What in the world is going on down there? Let's see... the ceiling master camera should still be working…"

What she saw on that camera would change how the professor looked at new students forever. It wouldn't be until much later and a lot of counseling from fellow colleagues that she would come to terms with what she viewed on the screen that day.

* * *

_In the Seventh Arena…_

Lawrence had been slapping the girl for what had seemed to be hours (but in fact, he had only slapped her for a minute and fifty-five seconds. Suddenly, his fists felt like they were hitting the ground instead of abused flesh. He wasn't sure why, so he opened his eyes (He had closed them in bliss) and saw that his opponent wasn't in front of him anymore. The confused Superpower Pokémon looked around for its target, but only saw a small mass of vines slowly moving through the bushes….

_"Wait a minute_."

Remembering that there was another Pokémon on the opposing team, he decided that she must have done the cowardly thing by stepping in and rescuing her teammate.

_"Oh, well,"_ he thought, "_looks like I'll have to teach someone else a lesson."_

He leered at the thought of a second female to educate. Spying a straggling vine, he took a hold of it, and pulled with all of his might, intending to throw his adversary over to his side of the arena so he could abuse her like he had the poor Ralts.

However, whatever was on the other side was apparently quite sturdy, as he was unable to move it over to his side of the arena. The Machop grumbled, deciding he would have to go over to finish off the Ralts, and start beating the little pixie he had seen earlier.

He barely took one step when from the surprisingly thick trees (He could've sworn that they were thicker now than they had been at the start of the match) stepped a gigantic monstrosity of wood and leaf. It was shaped like an odd mix between a Scyther, an Araiados, and a Skorupi. It had a large, ovular middle body made up of a lattice of branches covered in greenery. It had six long, tree trunk wide legs, each of which was carved to a point with serrated edges. The front pair of legs was shaped more like a traditional Scyther's blades, except rather than a sharpened cartilage segment, these blades were made of a dense Spinarak-web of thorny and, if the purple goo on the thorns was any indication, poisonous vines. The outer edge of the blade was made of wood, but of wood sharpened so well, the edge was barely even visible. There were eight wooden eyes with red glowing dots in them, circled in an octahedral shape, with a wicked looking quartet of serrated wooden fangs in the middle, each of which had a hollow tip, presumably for injecting poison. Growing from the back of this abomination of nature was a long leafy tail, one that was broken into segments by polished wooden bands. At the end of the tail was a lump of dirt, with an uprooted stone grasped in the middle. Something (Probably the front blades) had sharpened the end of the rock into a deadly point, making it like the stinger end of a Skorupi tail. Also, speckled all over the creature were flowers and fungi that, if Lawrence remembered Man Vs. Pokémon correctly, had lethal nerve toxins in them that could kill a Rock-type, who were supposed to be immune to poisons, in about five minutes.

Needless to say, Lawrence was very, _very_ afraid. Fighting a weak little Ralts was one thing, but fighting this wrathful demon? That was a whole 'nother ballpark.

So Lawrence did the only sensible thing. He turned and ran for the boundary line, trying to get to the safety of the teleportation field that sent disqualified combatants back to the classroom. He would rather lose and survive than fight and be horribly injured.

It seemed that the leafy beast wasn't going to let him get away. He felt, rather than saw, the beast slam a pair of its legs into the ground behind. Suddenly, in between Lawrence and the boundary lines, a thick wall of thorny vines shot out of the ground, preventing him from moving forward any further. As he ran towards the other boundary lines, more and more thorn walls exploded out of the ground, creating a cage for him… and _it._

Suddenly, a vine ensnared his ankle and whipped him high in the air, and then slammed him into the ground, then into several trees that seemed to pop out of the ground the moment he got near.

Finally, the vine released him in mid-throw, and he impacted into the ground with a scream, as his arm was bent at an odd angle under him when he hit the ground.

Before he could react to the thing that broke its arm, a storm over razor sharp leaves shot out at him, lacerating him all over his body. Following the barrage, the forelegs of the beast whipped out, and although the sharp edge of its blades missed the Machop, the outstretched vines that made up the interior of the blades did.

As he got up, he felt the ground start to rumble beneath him. Expecting another tree to pop out, he jumped to the side, wincing as he moved his fractured arm. Instead of a tree, however, the monster's tail blasted out of the ground and started to flail about, attempting to hit the injured Machop. Said Pokémon desperately started to dodge around, not wanting to get hit by the rock on the end of the tail. His focus on the tail would prove to be his downfall. By giving all of his attention to the writhing tail, he did not see the main body of the creature looming behind him.

Unexpectedly, Lawrence felt the forearms of his enemy scythe across his body, throwing him into the thorn wall that edged the arena. Two of the vines grasped his legs, while two of them encircled his arms and started to pull. He wailed as the pain of being ripped apart became too much, and he passed into unconciousness.

* * *

_In the Heart, Code Red_

Naomi Rios was frantically typing commands into her console, trying to figure a way out to save the Machop from death. At the moment, she was attempting to release all of the artificial status inflicters into the air vents of Arena #7. Her rapid fire typing was the only thing that could be heard throughout the Heart, as everyone else was holding their breath. This was the first time in the history of the Pokémon Behavior Class that someone was at great risk of dying, and in such a horrifying way.

The professor typed in a final command and told the computer to execute it. As the command went out to the arena, the Wigglytuff prayed that she was not too late.

All across the ceiling of Arena Seven, shutters slid apart revealing a variety of devices, all with a single purpose: incapacitating Pokémon. There were vents through which a specially designed cocktail of the various status infliction powders (Poison Powder, Sleep Powder, Stun Spores) was emitted, which was then blown by fans in order to ensure an even spread over the arena. In order to inflict temporary paralysis, there were static generators that could emit a pulse that had the same power levels of a natural Thunder Wave. There were even low level flamethrowers and Ice Beam emitters in order to inflict slight burns and immobilizing ice.

All of these status inflictors were primed and ready to fire at their target. All they needed now was the order to fire.

Once the firing command reached the devices, they all targeted the central body of the creature, and let loose with all of the status effects in their arsenal.

* * *

The primal and instinctual mind that was in charge of the forest beast did not have a very complex train of thought. Currently, its only goal was to rip apart the puny creature that had angered it. It had almost completed this goal, by catching the little gray thing in its ripping thorn net, when it was attacked from above. The pain ripped through its simple mind and it roared in agony and rage. Agony at the parts that were going numb, burning, freezing off, and rage at the audacity of whatever thought it could take out the creature with a sneak attack.

The vine walls receded as the goliath focused its attention on the new attacker, and the nearly dead Machop fell to the ground and slid off of the arena, falling into the teleportation field, which sent him back to RTI where he was immediately taken to the ICU.

Now that Lawrence was out of the arena, a new command came to the A.I. in charge of the pacification devices, ordering the A.I. to raise the power levels of the status inflictors.

The goliath roared in fury as the pain from the attacks started to get worse. In order to avoid some of the pain, the monstrosity stabbed its legs into the ground and raised up a wall of trees, which it then molded into a dome polished enough to reflect some of the attacks. The creature also was now able to counterattack, and it did so, shooting out sharpened wooden stakes, Razor Leaves, Vine Whips, etc. Though some of the attacks were shot down, many connected and destroyed several of the pacification devices.

The A.I noticed the destruction of many of its tools, and redirected the power from the destroyed nodes to the remaining tools, which started to glow at the surge of power. Tiny streams of fire became raging infernos, static twisted into bolts of lightning, ice crystals became a blizzard.

All targeted at the leafy creature.

What had been moderate pain for the giant creature became absolute torture as the attacks ripped through its defenses, hitting its body with more than five times the power than it had before. It fell on the ground, unable to move, unable to fight back against the attacker. Slowly, bits and pieces of the wood and leaf construction began to shrivel and fall of, and the primeval mind began to recede, slowly returning control to the primary intelligence.

With a loud snap, the construct broke in half and shriveled away, leaving behind two leafy orbs. As the A.I. turned off the status emitters, the two orbs irised open to reveal a somewhat-healed and unconscious Ralts, and a Celebi curled up into a ball, deep asleep.

* * *

As the rest of the staff in the Heart started to celebrate for preventing a fatality in the practice battle, Professor Rios numbly reached for a pair of dark shades and put them on, though she wished she did not have to. As soon as the shades were secure on her face , she reached under the arm of her chair and pressed a button.

A blue light was emitted from the column in the middle of the room, and everyone but Professor Rios froze for a minute.

As the effects of the flash started to wear off, the staff slowly and mechanically returned to their posts. As soon as they were there, the Wigglytuff pressed another button, and an orange flash went out, returning the staff to normal, and erasing their memories of the last twenty minutes, save for those of Professor Rios. Since she was the administrator in charge at the time, she had to keep her memories, and they would haunt her for a very long time.

* * *

_In the room of Sam Dayson and Circe Talim_

I slowly cracked open an eye, looking at my surroundings. The last thing I remembered was being in the arena, disqualifying Austin and then… nothing. Everything else was a big blank.

I sat up, trying to figure out where I was. As I looked around, I realized that I was back in my room. I noticed that Circe was also in the room, asleep in her bed. As I wondered how long I had been out, my mind supplied the answer.

_A day!_ _I've been out a full day!_

When the phone rang on the desk, I almost flew all the way up to the ceiling out of shock. Once I figured out that it was just the phone, I flew down to the desk and answered it.

"Hello?"

" _Ahh, hello Sam, this is Professor Redwood. How are you feeling?"_

"I'm feeling all right, Professor. What happened in the arena yesterday?"

_"Oh, so you figured out that you've been unconscious for a day, have you. Well, can't say I'm all that surprised. That time sense of yours can really be useful. I wonder if-"_

"PROFESSOR! Getting off topic, what happened in the arena?"

_"Well, I'm not exactly at liberty to explain the details, but there was an accident with the A.I. and the suppressant devices and the three of you had to be rapidly teleported out before the system targeted you primarily."_

I could've sworn that I detected a slight undertone of falseness to his statement, but before I could press him further, he said that he had a class coming in, that Circe and I were to stay in our room until tomorrow, and he would come and check in on us. Then he hung up the phone.

As Sam Dayson was scratching her head in confusion, Professor Redwood was reviewing the video clip of what the little Celebi had unleashed in Arena Seven.

"Such massive power…" he whispered as the newly-dubbed Forest Goliath grew a dome of trees to deflect some of the suppressant inflictors.

"All of that power within such a small being…How do they manage to do that?"

At these words, the professor opened a hidden archive on his computer, cycling through a variety of paintings and carvings, all of which had various depictions of a great beast of wood and leaf, an almost exact copy of what had appeared in the arena that day…

* * *

**Andddddd end chapter! Originally, this chapter was a lot shorter, at about half the length and a four page arena scene. I scrapped those four pages and turned them into about twenty pages, adding in a lot of description and backstory. The original plan was to encompass Sam's first day of school all in one chapter, but I decided that twenty eight pages was long enough, and stopped here. Hopefully, the next chapter will be the same length.**

** Ciao,**

** Kyron7**


	3. Dude, Where's my Time Period?

**I'm back, and much sooner than I expected. In this chapter, the story takes a rather unexpected turn, one that appears pretty much in the beginning. I feel happy with the way I'm taking this story, and I hope you, the readers, are happy with it too. If any of you say that you expected this to happen, than either you are clairvoyant, or you are a big fat liar. Enough of that, and onwards, to my first Arc!**

**P.S. Review-wise, the only worthwhile ones that I've received are Japaneserockergirl's. If you're not sure what one should put in a review, his/her reviews are great examples.**

**Disclaimer- Don't own Pokémon, but I do own most of the names of people and things. Oh, I also don't own Nirnroot, or Bloodgrass, those belong to Betheseda.**

"speech"

"_Translated sign language/book title"_

**(Author Note)**

* * *

"Boring, boring, boring, BORINGG!"

The little pixie's shout actually managed to make the trees in the room shake about for a moment as she continued to float back and forth in the air in frustration.

Due to an accident she wasn't even aware of the details of, she and her roommate and friend Circe Talim were ordered to remain in their room for the duration of the day. While Circe didn't have a problem with this, as she was still exhausted from her injuries, Sam was buzzing all over the place. She had never liked to be contained in one place for long periods of time, a belief that had only been increased by her recent transformation into a Celebi.

"Sam, you need to calm down," Circe said from her bed, "Pacing back and forth and screaming won't make time go faster."

"I know, I know." I said as I descended over to the Ralts's bed. "I just can't STAND being stuck in here. There's this voice in my head that is just screaming at me to get out into a forest where I can soar through the air, sleep in the trees, guard the inhabitants, grow Berry trees…" I trailed off with an odd wistful look in my eyes. I could picture exactly in my mind the kind of forest my instincts were begging for. A forest populated by a dense field of giant redwoods. Through the forest ran a sparkling stream, in which Feebas and Goldeen splashed and jumped around. Off a short ways from my viewpoint, I could see a herd of Stantler. The scene was so peaceful and tranquil, with birds chirping in the air…

Suddenly, all of the Stantler looked up in a panic, frightened by something. They started to run away, and the serenity was then unexpectedly broken by the angry barking of a pack of Houndours and Growlithes followed by a group of Zebstrika being ridden by richly dressed people wielding… shortbows.?

I watched speechlessly as the men on the equines commanded the dogs to separate part of the herd from the rest while the archers shot down the startled Stantlers.

One of the people, a boy who looked to be about twelve looked over in my direction and saw me. He started Apparently, one of the older men followed his stare, and also saw me. Once the man looked at me, he blew on a horn, calling even more Zebstrika riders out of the brush. One of them launched an arrow in my direction and it barely missed, just grazing my cheek…

Wait.

_If it grazed my cheek…OH SHIT!_

This wasn't some wistful daydream.

This was real.

* * *

_A minute earlier, Circe's POV_

As Sam started to voice her thoughts out loud, I settled back into the cushions of my bed. Hopefully, now that she was focused on her daydream, she would be occupied for a while, maybe even for half the day. Even though the fact that she had to voice her daydream out loud was kind of annoying, it was a lot less annoying than her buzzing all over the room screaming how boring it was to be stuck in here. I was still tired from the beating I had taken in the arena from the Machop and the malfunctioning computer, but I had been unable to sleep with the background noise that the Celebi was generating. If she had gone on with her complaining for another minute, I would've probably started throwing things at her.

Right as I started to be lulled to sleep by the serenity of the forest Sam was describing, a bright line shone out that woke me back up. As I got up to berate Sam for doing…whatever it was that was making the light, it stopped, and I went back to sleep.

* * *

Professor Redwood's office was located in the Deeps, in a hollowed out area near the Grass sector of the facility. The office itself was mostly Spartan in appearance, with only a few objects occupying the interior. There was a simple desk that was made of some smooth planks nailed together to form a surface sturdy enough to work on. On top of the plain desk were some basic resources, like paper, a cup of pencils, a clock, and a calendar. Behind and in front of the desk were two chairs, each made of cushioned driftwood.

The most impressive part of the room, well, the only impressive part of the room was the shelves of books on the wall behind the desk. Each of these books was very, _very_ old, and each had a different design engraved on the cover **(Just to be clear, the books have their covers facing **_**forwards, **_**towards the viewer).** In the middle of the shelf resided an elaborate designed book, one that had its cover divided into trients (three sectors), each of which had a depiction of a different beast, and different kind of jewels encrusted within. The left trient was encrusted with rubies and depicted the interior of a volcano. In the middle of this trient was an image of what looked like an dinosaur with bright red armor, and a powerful looking spiked tail. To the right of the red giant was a sapphire encrusted ocean scene dominated by a great blue leviathan, one that had red lines running all over its body. In the top trient, an emerald coated serpentine dragon coiled through the sky, its mouth opened in a silent roar. Written on the side of the book, in golden calligraphy were the words "_Archive of Hojaren's Unseen World."_ In equally flowing script was written the author's name: _Prince Joshua_ _Zacre, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Hojaren._

A green claw reached up towards the book as if to grab it, but instead reached for the books neighbor, a journal made of sheets of wood held together with vines. Carved into the front of the book was an image of a small green fairy with big blue eyes, sleeping on top of a large insectoid creature made of logs and leaves. Written above the image was the title "_Recorded Appearances of the Spirit of the Forest and its Goliath Protector"_ Unlike its more opulent neighbor, this book had no named author, and looked much older and worn.

As Professor Redwood pulled the book off of the shelf, his guest spoke up irritably.

"What is so important that you had to call me down to your office, Professor Redwood?"

Professor Redwood was unfazed by his guest's irritability

"Patience, Vivien, I will explain this all to you in a moment."

Vivien Aelia crossed her arms and huffed. Thirty minutes ago, the Baltoy had been examining and translating an ancient tablet that could reveal important insights to Pre-Tejiran Empire religious beliefs when she had received a phone call from Professor Redwood. He said that he needed her to come down to his office right away, because he needed her knowledge of ancient languages desperately. She agreed, as Professor Redwood had never been one to overstate the importance of things, and went to the Grovyle's office as fast as she could, only to find him sleeping in his chair! Vivien had waited for a good twenty minutes before her impatience got the better of her, and she started to whap him in the head with her arms. It had taken a good five minutes to wake him up, after which he had spent another five minutes just looking at his bookshelves.

Just as Vivien prepared to start Rapid Spinning him, Redwood placed the book on the desk and spun it around so that it was facing the Baltoy.

"This is why I called you down here, Vivien. I need you to translate some entries in this journal."

The clay effigy ignored the book and started to complain. "You interrupted my studies of the Sini Alter Tablet just so I could translate a journal? Why should I examine that insignificant little book rather than the tablet that I will only be able to study for two more days until I have to return it to the Sinnoh National Archives?"

Professor Redwood stayed calm despite his colleague's refusal to translate the journal. "First of all, Vivien Aelia, I assure you, this journal is far from insignificant. It probably has much greater importance than that dull piece of rock you are studying right now. Second-"

Professor Redwood was interrupted by a violent outburst from the small historian.

"ARE YOU INSANE! The Sini Alter Tablet will reveal the religious beliefs and laws practiced by the ancient inhabitants of Sinnoh! Such a discovery would give me enough respect in the archaeological community that I would finally be able to get a teaching post at any university I wanted to! For what reason should I give that all up and study your stupid book?"

"You should because the information in this book has been written by different people throughout the ages. I believe that the things they saw, the things that they recorded in this journal, could radically change the way that historians look at the past."

Professor Redwood's words interested Vivien, but then she thought of the fame and respect she would get for translating the tablet, and continued to refuse.

Seeing that the historical opportunities offered by the journal wasn't enough to convince the Baltoy, Professor Redwood decided to go ahead and play his trump card.

"I'll make you a deal, Vivien. If you agree to translate this journal here, in return I will let you examine the crown jewel of my book collection."

"And what might that be? Another journal, or maybe a newspaper."

Professor Redwood silently reached up to his bookshelf and gingerly took down the large bejeweled tome that had rested in the center, and placed it in front of the still talking Baltoy.

"Oh I know! It's probably a… probably… a." The Baltoy trailed off as it saw what the Grovyle had placed on the desk in front of her.

"Is this what I think it is?" she whispered, reaching out towards the book, but hesitating, as though the book might vanish the moment she touched it.

"Indeed. The only unedited book written by Joshua Zacre, Crown Prince of the old Hojaren Kingdom. Within this manuscript is written all of the information the Crown Prince could find on the Pokémon known as the Legendary Pokémon, specifically those found in the region now known as the Hoenn Region. Something you have to realize my dear historian, is that there will always be more Sini tablets discovered (Due to the Sini practice of burying religious tablets with the dead), but there will never be more than one of this book."

Immediately realizing what was being offered to her, the Baltoy reached out for the gilded tome, only for the professor to whisk it back to the shelf.

"Remember the deal Miss Aelia. First you translate the journal, THEN I will let you study this book.

While the floating effigy told the professor that she accepted such a deal, in her mind she was starting to think that the journal might hold more important information than the jewel-encrusted book did. After all, if Redwood was willing to let someone else examine such a prize as the Archive in return for translating a journal, then there must be something pretty interesting hidden in that journal.

* * *

"I didn't want you to shoot it! I only wanted to know what it was! Why'd you have to go and scare it off like that?"

King Michael sighed. Today was supposed to have been a very important day, as it was the day his son was to go on his first hunt. Knowing how well his son could wield a short bow, he had expected him to easily be able to take down one of the Stantler in the herd his trackers had found the previous day. Everything had gone smoothly until they had seen the herd. Rather than shooting one of the grazing Stantler, his son had shot a nearby tree instead. This had startled the Stantler, and the canine handlers had been forced to release the hounds so that the hunt wouldn't be a total loss. When he went to his son and demanded to know why he had missed, his son had said that he didn't want to hunt, that he believed it was inhumane. Hearing these words come out of his son's mouth, King Michael was outraged. He told his son that it didn't matter if he didn't want to hunt, it was his duty as a noble to go hunting. If he didn't go hunting, he would be seen as weak, which in turn, would make the king be seen as weak. When the king took a breathe to continue, he noticed that the prince wasn't even paying attention, he was looking off at something in the distance. He followed his gaze and saw an odd little green…thing floating out in the open, staring right back at them. The king had immediately called forth his trackers, and had ordered them to shoot the creature with a poisoned arrow. The arrow was hot, but a slight gust of wind caused it to go off course and go right by the thing's head rather than embed itself in its chest where it would have weighed the floating creature down so that it couldn't fly.

As the trackers urged their mounts to chase after the fleeing animal, the king turned to his son.

"Joshua, you know as well as I do that we are at war with Jahterans. Whatever that thing was, it was probably a scout for the Jahteran Army.

Prince Joshua disagreed with his father's statement. "Father, just because you see something in the woods that you haven't seen before, it doesn't automatically make it a spy! It could just be a forest Pokémon that you haven't managed to kill yet!" The prince spat the last part out bitterly.

Again, King Michael sighed. His son just didn't understand war or logic. "Son, not only was it something that I haven't seen in my _twenty_ years of hunting these woods, it wasn't acting like a normal Pokémon. It was floating out in the open, visible to any nearby predators, and it was staring at us, rather than running away from potential threat. It was spying on us, and it has probably been spying on us for a while now, if it knows what time we hunt at."

Seeing that his son was about to argue again, the king held up a hand. "You may be right, and it may have been a foolish forest Pokémon. However, until this war is over, nothing can be taken for granted" He scanned the surrounding trees, checking for anything else that could be spying on them. "For now, the hunt is over. Until we find out the purpose of that creature, these woods are unsafe for us. Let us return back to the castle, and see what the cook has prepared for us today."

As they rode off, the prince spared one last glance back towards where the fairy-like creature had been floating. He silently vowed that he would come back and find out what that creature was.

* * *

The trackers rode through the forest, looking for the green spy that their liege had told them to track down. Their keen eyes scanned the surrounding brush, ready to detect even the slightest hint of movement. Other senses, such as hearing and smell, were also prepared, amplified through years of training. These senses were augmented by those of their mounts, who had been conditioned to signal their riders if they sensed their target.

Seeing as how their target had been grazed by one of their arrows, which were envenomed with a poison whose antidote was _very_ hard to find, the trackers should have had an easy job of finding their quarry.

It seemed that that day was to be a day of easy tasks turning into impossibilities.

Gloom and Vileplume started throwing their spores all over the place, obscuring the scent of their prey, Buterfree and Beedrill flew directly into the men's faces and buzzed around angrily, and even the trees seemed to block their path. Eventually, even the Zebstrika mounts balked, refusing to attempt to forge through the forest that had taken on a mind of its own.

Laht, the man in charge of the trackers, contemplated continuing to track the creature on foot. Laht was a very serious man, who took orders and followed them to the best of his ability. Failing this command given to him by his king would be shameful, not only to him, but to the men in his unit as well.

On the other side of the coin, however, was the fact that attempting to track the pixie on foot would be a foolhardy attempt. Seeing as how the entire forest was fighting against them, they probably wouldn't be able to reach the creature before it died from the venom that was coursing through its bloodstream at the moment. Depending on where it got grazed, it could be dead already.

Laht decided that there would be no point in continuing to track something that was already dead. He gave a hand signal to the rest of his men, and they urged their mounts around back the way they had come. As they rode back, the head tracker started to contemplate what he would tell his king…

* * *

Cedric Kazon lived a peaceful life in the forest. Long ago, he had been the head doctor in a noble's castle, where he taken care of the noble's sickly wife and child. They had developed some kind of madness that had them imagining that every scratch, every sneeze, simply everything was a sign of a deadly illness. Cedric had been hired to control their madness, so that the noble's image wasn't ruined. He had told the noble of an exotic herb, that if ingested daily in moderate amounts, could lessen the symptoms to manageable levels. However, the herb could not be found in the Hojaren region, as it could only grow in the more fertile soil of the faraway Sini region. The noble had Cedric describe the herb to his traders, who went out to the region to locate a source of the plants. He wasn't aware of the details, but he did know that they managed to get some of the flower sent back to the castle. The noble's family started to improve, and Cedric was awarded with a post as head healer in the castle. While he had worked there, besides getting paid a hefty salary, he had access to the best herbs and the most recent medical texts, everything that a healer of his caliber needed to treat his patients. Everything was going perfectly.

Then Cedric found out exactly how the noble had obtained the constant supply of flowers.

One day, Cedric had found that some of the herbs had been tainted with some kind of dried substance. Fearing that it was a fungus infecting the herbs, he had requested that he be taken to the site where the flowers grew. It took a bit of debating with the noble, and a few statements of how if the flower was being tainted by something, the wife and child's symptoms might get worse, to get him to concede to letting Cedric go. After a long travel over hazardous terrain, Cedric and the gatherers reached the herb site.

What Cedric saw there shocked him and shook his trust in the noble who had hired him.

The place where the plants had been discovered growing had been the site of a native tribe of Sini gatherers. When the traders had gotten there, they had revealed their true colors as mercenaries, and rather than try to broker a deal for the plants with the peaceful natives, they went straight to using force to get the plants. They killed half of the tribe, and forced the other half to gather the flower to be sent back to the noble's castle. He discovered that the dried liquid he had found on the herb was blood from a Sini man who had not moved fast enough in gathering herbs.

On the way back to the castle, Cedric knew that he would be unable to keep working for the noble who had ordered innocent men and women killed so that his image could be maintained. However, if he went back to the castle and confronted the noble about this, he knew that the noble would more than likely have him put to death to keep the secret of his family's madness.

So, the night before they reached the castle, Cedric tried to sneak off in the middle of the night. Of course, he had no training in stealth, so he was quickly spotted by the sentry of the "traders" who raised the alarm. Apparently, the noble was aware that the healer might try to run off after he saw what was happening at the herb site. Luckily for Cedric, he had run towards a section of the woods that local superstition called haunted, due to a large number of cases where people disappeared into the woods. The mercenaries knew of the disappearances, and decided that Cedric was a goner anyways. They reported back to the noble, who, although incensed over the lost of his head healer, decided that it was for the best that Cedric had died in the woods.

The noble was unaware that Cedric had survived, and had developed a relationship with the Pokémon in the forest. Anytime a Pokémon was injured, its pack, flock, or whatever group it belonged to would bring the Pokémon to Cedric for aid. In return for this service, none of the Pokémon would attack him, and would bring him berries and protect him if need be. Over time, a legend arose in the villages around the forest of a two-sided spirit. If one respected nature, and didn't take more than what they needed from the forest, the spirit would treat them kindly in return, healing them if they were injured. If one did _not_ respect nature, and was greedy in what they took from the woods, the other side would emerge, sending the victim away from the human plane of existence. Cedric himself had heard of the legend, and though he knew that the good side was obviously based on him, he was unsure what could be causing the disappearances.

Nowadays, the healer-turned-hermit lived in a secluded meadow deep in the forest, inside of a hut made from the cast off limbs of trees. It had taken him a full year to find the necessary detritus for his house. The first few months of this search for building materials had been somewhat of a nightmare for the ex-castle healer, as he had had no survival training of any kind before he had been forced to flee to the forest. The only useful knowledge that he had was the ability to distinguish between edible and deadly herbs, and how to make medicines out of natural components. In those fearful months, Cedric had also been forced to live up in a tree, as the predators of the woodlands were… not so friendly to this intruder in their territory. Thankfully, the Pokémon inclined towards eating meat started leaving him alone after he started going around healing all of the injured wild Pokémon he could find. Once he was accepted among the forest's inhabitants, Cedric was able to finish his shelter in peace. When he finished, his shelter looked a giant, lopsided basket had been planted in the middle of the woods. He wasn't proud of his poor construction, but he was happy that it would at least keep him dry.

Cedric started off his day with his normal routine, fetching water and berries for his breakfast. He then went to an open air box and withdrew a pile of bandages woven from the silk produced by the local Caterpie. After getting the bandages inside of the woven-wood hut that he lived in, he went out to his herb garden and started to pick the herbs that he normally used in healing the Pokémon that came to him for help. He made sure to pick a variety of medicinal herbs, as he never knew what Pokémon would be coming in, or what injuries that they would have. After gathering together everything he went to his favorite spot to practice meditating, an activity he had discovered was actually quite fulfilling. The spot that he used for practicing this activity was a pair of stumps that sat near the edge of the clearing he called home. When he got to the stumps, he saw one of them was already occupied, though this was not unexpected.

"Good morning, Kasai."

The Charmeleon meditating on the stump did not respond to this greeting, too deep in his meditations. Cedric sat on the stump next to the Charmeleon and let his mind wander as well. What seemed like minutes later, or hours, as one lost track of time when meditating, Cedric faintly heard a horn blow.

_The king must be hunting again._ Cedric thought. In order to take his and his court's mind off of the war with the Jahterans, the king had started taking the nobles on more and more hunts. By doing this, it looked to everyone that the king was calm and unworried about the war that the Hojarens were slowly losing. While, Cedric understood the meaning behind this, it irritated him, because the increase in hunting, as well as the notoriously poor accuracy of most of the nobles, a lot more Pokémon had been brought to him for healing from errant arrows.

Some time after Cedric heard the horn, he was awoken from his trance by someone poking his shoulder.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to see Kasai, who had obviously exited his trance, pointing at the edge of the clearing, where the shrubbery was rustling. Anywhere else in the forest, rustling plants might be considered insignificant, but in Cedric's area, Pokémon only approached if they were injured or bringing an injured Pokémon.

"Well, Kasai, I guess its time to get to work. If you would be so kind as to heat up the water…"

As the Charmeleon went to do his duty as Cedric's assistant and prepare the hut for its incoming patient, Cedric walked over to the trees to see who his patient would be. At his approach, a Nidoking and Nidoqueen emerged from the trees, following behind them was a small herd of Vileplume huddled around a large Venesaur bearing something small and green on its flower. In the air above the Venesaur flew several Skiploom, Pidgeot, and Fearows. Cedric was astonished at the large variety of Pokémon coming to him at one time. Normally, if a Pokémon was injured, another member of its species would bring it to him. For all of these Pokémon to be escorting one Pokémon meant that whoever or whatever the injured Pokémon was, they were terribly important to the forest dwellers.

Cedric directed the Venesaur to place the little green Pokémon in his arms so that he could take it into the hut (needless to say, the Venesaur was much too big to fit inside the crude shack. As the hermit took the little Pokémon inside, the Pokémon who had been escorting the Venesaur took up positions around the meadows, as if guarding the place from invaders. Cedric realized that whoever it was that he about to try and heal wasn't just terribly important to the Pokémon who had brought it to him.

It was vital to the _whole forest._

* * *

As Cedric entered the hut, Kasai was still placing clean linen on the table that Cedric used for treating Pokémon that were either unconscious or on the verge of death. As the healer placed the tiny creature on the table, Kasai's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, unnoticed by Cedric, who was already focused on his new patient.

"A graze to the cheek is the only noticeable wound on the Pokémon, so its condition must have something to do with it." Cedric leaned in closer to the graze with a magnifying glass in order to more closely examine the cut. "Judging by the way the cut was made smoothly, it appears that the wound was made by a fast moving metal object, probably an arrow from the hunt that happened not too long ago."

The hermit frowned, as his mind had immediately come to an idea of what may be affecting the Pokémon. "Kasai, hand me a piece of Ferrimic Bark." The Charmeleon went over to the herb table and grabbed a small sheet of the red bark in his claws. Ferrimic Bark was an invaluable tool for medics everywhere, due to the fact that it would react in different ways to many different poisons. By placing a drop of poisoned blood onto a piece of the bark, a medic who knew how to translate the reactions into poisons would be able to immediately tell what poison was affecting their patient. This incredible usefulness of a piece of bark to identify almost any poisons was a key argument for the church that the world was created by intelligent design, because how else could such a useful plant have come into existence. Anyways, back to the situation at hand.

Kasai handed the bark to Cedric, who took it and brushed it against the little pixie-ish creature's cheek so that it contacted the blood. When he pulled it back, the bark immediately started to smoke and fizz.

"It's as I thought. Poison from the Analkli Flower, distilled with nectar from the Common Maiden. The typical poison of choice for the Hojaren Rangers to use on their arrows. Must've spotted this poor little thing and thought a threat and thus shot it, how typical." Cedric snorted. Now wasn't the time to be deriding the cruelty of the nobles, now was the time to be saving his patient.

"Judging by how the blood on the cut is congealing with a yellowish tint, we have no more than two hours to get the antidote administered. Kasai, if you would give me the boiled essence of Nirnroot, mixed together with some Distilled Bloodgrass please."

His Pokémon assistant reached over to the boiling cauldron nearby and withdrew a small phial, no bigger than a man's knuckle, containing a glowing blue-green mixture from inside the water. He took the phial and opened the top, putting a drop of a red bubbling froth into the phial and shook it so that the liquids combined and somehow created a smooth, silvery concoction.

Cedric took the phial and looked at it. "I wish I didn't have to use our last batch of Nirnroot for this, but we don't have enough time to perform the other treatments for Ranger poison. The hermit opened the miniscule container and poured the three drops of silver elixir contained within it, into the cut on the fairy's face. He then massaged the wound so that the blood would start moving the miraculous elixir through the veins and stood back. There were some Pokémon that had a reaction to his invented elixir, and he had learned the hard way that one shouldn't remain near a thrashing Primeape.

Suddenly, the green pixie started to glow with a weak silvery light that was similar in color to the elixir that had just been introduced to its blood system.

The healer was only slightly startled, as he had seen a great many oddities during his career as a medic for forest Pokémon.

"An unusual reaction that I have never seen before, the patient taking on a glow similar in color to my elixir. Kasai, jot that down in the encyclopedia while I make sure that our patient is alright."

The moment Cedric made a move to check the pulse of his patient, the fairy's slowly awakening mind restarted the section of the brain that controlled defensive instincts and healing. Immediately, it sensed that something was dangerously close to grabbing the Celebi's body, and reacted accordingly.

Kasai was jotting down the fairies reaction to the elixir when he felt something rumbling in the ground, as if something was tunneling through. He realized that whatever it was, it was heading for where Cedric was standing.

Before he was able to start examining his patient's pulse, Cedric was tackled away by a fast moving Charmeleon. Seconds after he was tackled aside, a tree erupted from the ground right below the table the green pixie was laying on. Said fairy was pushed upwards by the tree's leafy canopy up towards the roof of the hut, which seemed to flow apart to create space for the tree to grow upwards. The tree continued growing until the petite sprite was exposed to the dwindling light of the evening sun.

Once the Pokémon who had been circled around the clearing saw the tree growing rapidly, they headed for home. Their job was done, their Guardian saved.

Meanwhile, in the hut, or what was left after the tree had grown in the middle of it, Cedric was trying to understand what had just happened. One moment he had been treating a patient, the next, the same patient was being born aloft by a tree. He turned to his partner for explanation.

"Do you understand what just happened here, Kasai?"

Though the Charmeleon lacked the proper vocal cords to talk to the hermit in human speech, he had learned, over the years, how to use sign language, which Cedric had learned as well. It was in sign language that Kasai replied to the healer-hermit.

"_Guardian of the Forest has returned. Still needs aid. We have been chosen."_

Cedric would have asked the Charmeleon to elaborate, but he was interrupted by a second rumbling sound. The sound originated from the tree, which was slowly receding back into the ground because the sun had fallen.

As the fairy came into view, Cedric started to reach for it, but hesitated, remembering what had happened the last time he had reached towards the pixie. Kasai, on the other hand, had no such hesitation. He knew that as long as he offered no threat to the Guardian, she would not attack him. He reached out slowly, making sure to move as peacefully as possible, and picked up the forest sprite delicately. Not making any sudden or quick movements, he brought her to the soft grass nest that Cedric and Kasai had made for Pokémon who couldn't immediately travel after being cured. After placing her gently on the soft bedding, he stepped back a bit from the fairy, giving a short bow as he did so.

Once her back touched the soft grass, the fairy rolled on her side and started to snore. As she did so, a web of branches grew up from the sides of the nest, weaving together until they created a small dome over the snoring forest sprite.

Taking a cue from the fairy, Cedric and Kasai went to their own bedmats, and fell asleep. As they slept, one of them wondered what the new patient was, while the other worried about the implications of the patient visiting the forest.

* * *

_Castle Sacre_

Of all the castles in Hojaren, none were more important, or more majestic, than Castle Sacre, the home of the royal family of Hojaren. From within the castles mighty stone walls, the Sacre family had decided the laws of the realm, ruling with a just, yet firm fist. At the moment, while the guards patrolled the walls in the warm night, the nobility were enjoying a feast in the Great Hall.

The Great Hall itself was like any other dining hall in most Hojaren castles: it had a soaring vaulted ceiling, stained glass windows depicting many of the great feats performed by various members of the Sacre family over the ages (such as a depiction of Brutus Sacre the Fifth wrestling a rampaging Machoke into Submission), and a table large enough to seat a hundred nobles, but was currently only seating thirty. Usually, such meals were reserved for great celebrations for holidays, or for happy events.

Not so in these troubled times.

This meal wasn't being held in drunken jubilation, but in sobriety. This was because it was a war meeting.

At the moment, a tall, reedlike noble was addressing the king. "-the Jahterans are currently massing within view of some of our sentry posts. Our spies tell us that they plan to move to the port cities of Slatis and Florais in an attempt to cut us off from any aid from our allies in the Masserian Island Empire. Once they take those ports, their next move would probably be to take the market cities in the area of Lord Trenton's castle, and then all they have to do is besiege the castle here at Fortray, and we would have no choice but to surrender or be destroyed."

Before the king could respond to the noble's statement, another noble stood up, this one a large, ponderous, Sealeo-esque man with large whiskers and an even larger belly. "My lord, if what Duke Erran's _spies_," he said with a sneer, "is true, which I highly doubt, then we would have no chance against the Jahterans. However, MY spies have informed me that the Jahterans will not attack the ports, but move directly into Nerrihin, from where they could use the nearby river systems to launch attacks on almost all of the kingdom! All Erran wants is for his sorry hide to be protected by your army, while the rest of us are killed and our castles demolished! It is Nerrihen that needs to be protected, not the ports!"

At this, all of the nobles started to argue about which area was going to be attacked by the invading army, each claiming that the area they controlled was too important to be left unprotected by the royal army. King Michael sighed. Trying to get these greedy fools to work together was like trying to make a Grumpig learn to fly.

A light tug on his royal green robes attracted his attention to his son, who, as the crown prince, had to attend the meeting, even though he had nothing to contribute.

"Dad, could I go now? Master Turin said that he expected me to report to him before the moon rose."

King Michael nodded. Though custom dictated that the male members of the royal family had to attend any war meetings, he didn't want to upset the short-tempered magus that he had hired as Joshua's tutor (With the explicit warning to not teach his son any of his magical arts), as there was no idea of what the magus might do if his pupil didn't arrive on time. Besides, he was king, and he defined custom by his actions. He nodded at his son and whispered to him that he better hurry. His son nodded, and quickly hopped off his small throne and ran towards the stairs, unnoticed by the bickering nobles.

* * *

_North-East Tower, thirty minutes after moonrise_

"Now where is that stupid boy, I gave him _explicit_ directions to be here before moonrise! He better not be swiping sweets from the kitchens again or I'll give him the flogging of his life!"

Turin the Magus was what everyone expected an Old Master of magic to look like. He had a long white beard that reached down past his wrinkled face to his stomach. His clothing consisted of a grey robe with a variety of mystical signs woven into the fabric with golden wire. Encircling his eyes were thick spectacles that no matter the light, seem to give a small, crescent shaped glare of light. On top of his head he wore a hat that was typical of magi of his caliber: one with a wide brim and a very pointed top. Lying near him against the wall was his gnarled oak staff which he used to cast only his most powerful and destructive spells.

Then, the door to his room banged open, and running in came Prince Joshua, late once again.

"Young man, I gave you unambiguous orders to be in here BEFORE moonrise. Look at the window and tell me, is it before moonrise?" Before even giving the young noble a chance to respond, he continued his tirade. "NO! The moon rose long ago, and how do you think that makes me thin of your respect for me?"

Before he could be lectured anymore about how late he was, the prince interjected.

"I'm sorry Master Turin, but there was this big, unannounced war meeting, and I had to come, and the all of the dukes and barons wouldn't stop arguing, and I had to stay because of some stupid custom, and-"

"You snuck out during a war meeting just to come to my class? Good show, boy!" The magi's voice switched from one of berating to one of pride as the prince informed him of how he had snuck out from a highly sensitive meeting unnoticed by any nobles.

"I guess since you were… detained by bickering nobles, I could let this one tardy slide. However, your lateness is still a problem. No, not because of my dislike for lateness, but because my lesson for you tonight involved observing the craters of the moon as it rose into the sky. Seeing as how it has already risen past prime observation point, we'll have to find something else to do…"

At that moment, Turin's pet Noctowl, Archie, spotted a plump and juicy moth fluttering over a stack of books nearby. He swooped over silently, grabbing the moth in his beak, but in the process, knocking over the pile of books.

"BLASTED BIRD! Look at what you've done. Joshua, come over here and pick up these books while I take care of that accursed avian."

The prince immediately obeyed, and went over to pick up the books, placing them neatly on top of the table they had been laid on.

Before he finished picking them up, one of them caught his eye. It was a somewhat worn journal made out of wood bound together with vines. Joshua couldn't read the title written on the front, as it was in a language he had never seen before, but the cover art intrigued him. The sleeping fairy seemed familiar… Wait! The forest!

Turin had managed to calm the bird down and place it back in his cage when he saw the young prince looking at the journal and decided to improvise.

"I see you've found that old book. I honestly don't know why 'I keep it around anymore, it hasn't been much help."

"What is it?" Joshua asked.

"That book right there is some kind of observation diary. People over the ages have been keeping notes in there about times that they saw the Spirit of the Forest as it appears. That Pokémon on the front there, laying on top of that giant creature, is what the spirit is supposed to look like when it materializes on our mortal plane. Thing is, most scholars believe that the whole "Spirit of the Forest" is just a myth, but I think its real. One day, I know I'll find it, but probably not for a long time…"

Then Joshua spoke up. "I've seen it."

"Seen what, my boy."

"I've seen the Spirit of the Forest."

An excited gleam came into Turin's eye, but was almost immediately quashed. "Joshua, don't mess with an old mage's dreams," the conjurer said, "they're one of the few personal things they have left."

Joshua Sacre huffed. Adults were all the same, always disbelieving the children. "But I'm not kidding around, Master Turin. I saw a small green pixie, with big blue eyes ringed with black earlier today on the hunt."

The mage's restraint vanished with these words, and he grabbed the boy by the shoulders. "Where did you see it boy, WHERE?"

Master Turin's sudden behavioral change was a bit frightening, but was an usual experience for his student.

"I saw it a few miles away from Lake Restmere. The thing is, I sorta…kinda… showed it to my dad too."

Prince Joshua's evasive behavior set alarm bells ringing in the grizzled mage's head. That, and Turin knew that King Michael's usual policy of investigating strange things involved shooting arrows first, asking questions of the torturers later, a behavior that was only exacerbated by the upcoming war.

"Well, boy? What did your father do?"

The royal child looked down at the ground, rubbing his foot shyly. "He…ummm… ordered his rangers to shoot it. They didn't hit it, but I think one of the arrows grazed the spirit in the cheek."

The magus started pacing, cogs turning rapidly in his head. He knew that the arrows the rangers used had a very potent poison slathered on the arrowheads, a poison that could take down an enraged Emboar within a few minutes. He wasn't sure if the spirit's body, even with its divine essence, could fight off the poison for very long. Finally, he came to a decision.

"Prince Joshua, you and me shall be going out on a foray into the forest in search of this creature. I will arrange it with your father that it shall only be the two of us, and you are to tell NO ONE that we are in search of the Spirit of the Forest, understand?"

Said royalty straightened up in excitement at the prospect of saving the creature that had been shot by his father's men. "Yes sir, I understand perfectly."

"That's a good boy, now, go and gather anything you will need for our little expedition." As the boy turned to leave, Turin admonished him "Remember, mum's the word."

The prince nodded and then turned and ran to his room, ready to go out adventuring the next day.

* * *

**I had been hoping to break 10k with this chapter, but I decided that now was as good a place to stop as any. I also had been hoping to get a bit of action in this chapter, but alas, I felt that my planned action scene would do better later, in the next chapter or two. As you can see, I've taken advantage of the opportunities offered by Celebi being able to time travel, and taken my story in a direction NO ONE could have expected. Rest assured, most of the story will take place at RTI, but on occasion, Sam will be sent backwards or forwards in the past, usually quite spontaneously, in order to either A.) Right some wrong, or B.) Find out more about what it means to be a Celebi. On a side note, as you can see, I've really gotten into this story, and I will more than likely update it more often than I did with CotD. Or maybe not. Depends how well I deal with my move into college. Anyways, expect to see more soon.**

** Kyron7 **


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